I post this here because it's hitting women

[slightlv]

(and the elderly) most disproportionately. After two years of trying to get the "correct" documents together... or those that look "okay" to the DMV people, and having my request forms "lost" more than a few times to states... my REAL ID driver's license finally came in the mail yesterday. It only cost me $18 at the DMV... $18.00 for two certified copies of one document.. and over $20 in postage fees to finally get someone to sign for the request and mail it back to me. That's not counting all the hours I've lost trying to track through unpacked boxes from several different moves, nor the frustration level when I think I've finally got it all together, only to have someone else at the DMV tell me this or that document doesn't meet their standards. For example, there was white out on my original marriage certificate and they wouldn't accept that... although all it looks like TX finally ended up doing was copying the certificate onto white paper and stamping it. So it was what? Close to $60 dollars to finally get ONE document that would meet up to the standards of DMV, and goddess help me, I actually found the appropriate page from a long-ago divorce that I'd saved into an old children's bible my grandma gave me a million years ago.

Funny thing is, I don't feel relieved or happy to have finally gotten this in the mail. To me, it seems more of bowing to an authority I don't morally, personally recognize as legal, for a process I feel deeply humiliated by, for a law that was made in extreme circumstances and rapidly in reaction to, rather than as a reasoned one. Looking back now, how many of these congress critters who made this law were serving during Cheney and GW's reign? With as much trouble as it is for women and the elderly, not to mention the costs involved, was this already an assault on our rights years before trump came on the scene... but not so early for some of these white, male congressmen. I still say Kudos to those who had the guts to stand against the law as it was proposed. I believe there were very few with the courage, but I want to remember at least one of them was a woman. If so, I dare say a very prescient woman.

[cachukis]

1. Well exposed. That you got through it is a monumental credit to yourself.

Think how hard it will be for those with less fortitude.
Assholes got voted in by assholes.

[mopinko]

2. when the talk about voter id

they know lots of ppl will have to jump through just such (expensive) hoops.

[J_William_Ryan]

3. "I don't feel relieved or happy to have finally gotten this in the mail."

And you shouldn’t.

That you were subject to this process is unwarranted, reprehensible, and wrong.

[CrispyQ]

4. I'm $67.50 into getting my docs & still need one more.

[summer_in_TX]

5. On a related note,

an elderly powerhouse of a woman in my community responded the first election after Texas passed the requirement for a photo ID to vote by marching into the polling location with a LARGE framed portrait of herself I'm pretty sure had been hanging over her mantel the only time I was at her home. (Where after serving me lunch I'd been grilled for more than an hourabout the nonprofit I'd founded to pursue a community radio station license while she took notes in her notebook.)

In our small town, everyone knew M.F. As conservative as a dyed-in-the-wool rural Texas woman of her era often could be. Very definitely could use a rifle, if only for Texas rattlesnakes and cottonmouth water moccasins. She'd married a hometown boy who'd served in the marines in WWII, and they had lived here since the 1940s. Volunteered in a lot of areas, was a formidable regular at city council meetings and of course always voted.

She was indignant at government demanding proof of who she was.

Not sure, but I suspect she was allowed to vote. I sure wouldn't have wanted to cross her.

[slightlv]

8. I could have probably turned frustration into some good,

but I admit my frustration button is directly related to my anger button... and a very large mouth which has lost its filter since I retired! I'd end up doing as much danger as good if I'd done what I really wanted to do. And there are still a lot of people who don't understand what we have to go through, or how odious the process is, and blame us for not getting it done sooner. To me, that's victim blaming. The whole reeks of what we went thru in the 60's and 70's to get birth control and abortion legalized. It was SO much work for us, but this time around, the only thing waiting for us on the other side is concrete proof we "complied." ARGH!

[pat_k]

6. I can't get a real ID until I file for a legal name change.

I won't be flying anywhere anytime soon.

My step father never legally adopted my sister and i but we've used his last name from the time I was about 5. My mom got us social security cards in his name. I have an affidavit from my mom, now deceased, that I used to get a driver's license when NJ tightened ID regs after 9/11. That doesn't fly to connect birth name to all other ID these days. I have to file a petition for a name change. The fee is $200, but that's not the biggest problem. The problem is the process. The simplest way is to show up with cash at the county courthouse on one of the two mornings the do name changes, and then wait til you are called -- which can take anywhere from about two to five hours. The longer process of filing by mail still requires a court appearance, but you don't have control over when that might be. And with the whole Real ID crap, they have been kind of inundated with people who are up against some "name match" problem. These days I run a solo dog walking business and clearing my midday schedule is very, very, challenging, not to mention the loss of income.

So, I'm resigned not to even try filing -- or flying- until the courts aren't as backed up.

[slightlv]

7. Exactly the same problem I had with my birth certificate!

Mom's name was not the same as her stepfather's... and he never adopted her. Through an oversight of hers, she listed the wrong maiden name on my birth certificate. I was lucky in that she corrected the problem a few days after I was born. But today, that "correction" because it looks SO different from an original birth certificate was about to be turned down, even tho it had the state seal! That was just my first problem. The divorce docs were the hardest. How many women actually proudly hold on to their divorce documents where they know exactly where they are, after fighting the hardest fight in their lives? (sigh)

I still say this will, sooner rather than later, be necessary to vote, should the repub prevail. I also think this has been the plans with all the "extensions" for as long as the Unitary Executive policy actually was in place and ready to run roughshod over us and the constitution. But I may be all wet... I just honestly don't think so.